My Christmas Tree was spectacular this year. Why? Because underneath was a brand new Garmin Oregon 400T. It’s already been loaded up with the 500 nearest caches to where I am staying here in Dallas and I’ve also downloaded one Wherigo to try. But that’s not the only news today.
Now that it is official the day after Christmas, we mark the close of registration for my 2010 Great TB Race. Estimated numbers put us at around 100 contestants this year, almost 20 more than last year. Several of the contestants were winners of MIA prizes for 2009, which they became eligible for after their 2009 entries were declared missing. Several contestants were winners of the three Twitter Contests I ran for free entry to the race (meaning I provided everything, they just have to activate). And as we close in on the end of the 2009 race, we are looking at how to divy up the roughly $200 of prizes. That seems like a lot after a year’s time of accepting donations. Well, then you might be surprised that before the 2010 race has even begun, I’m already up to $150 in prizes for 2nd race. Exciting.

I should also follow up with my last post. In that post, I described my trip down to Dallas. For the trip, I left my place at around 4:30 – 4:45 AM. It took me about an hour to get to where I needed to hop onto I-35, with time spent refilling my tires and a stop at the store. In the end, I picked up 34 caches, adding 21 counties in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas to my list. Here is a map of my route, marked with each cache I visited:

For a particularly interesting story from the trip, visit THIS BUD’S FOR YOU! and read my log entry from 12/21/09. Truly a funny (in hindsight) story that involves a my suspicious movements, a concerned citizen, a police officer, and my car keys.

So with it closing in on 1:30 AM, it’s time for me to call it a night. A late Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays to everyone out there.